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In chat rooms and at owner events, the Viper faithful like to beat their chests and rail against all efforts to domesticate their sacred serpents. But get them alone and loosened up a little, and the story changes. “Yes I track my car a lot, and I still want to win, but I wouldn’t mind winning in a less deafening, roomier cockpit with cruise control. See, these rich guys also own other fancy GT cars, and they’re a smidge smitten by the creature comforts those cars offer. So the SRT Viper team set out to deliver a no-compromises car this time around, and at long last they’ve invited us to grade their efforts by letting us take the 2013 SRT Viper out for a few hot laps around western Michigan’s GingerMan Raceway.

But before we strap in, let’s recap the new Viper’s program highlights. On the creature comforts front, in addition to the aforementioned cruise control, new Sabelt thin-shell seats boost comfort and provide greater seat travel both back and down to better accommodate taller and helmeted drivers. Chrysler‘s 8.4-inch console screen controls features including Uconnect Bluetooth telematics, navigation, and satellite radio, and a choice of two Harman Kardon stereos sprinkle either 12 or 18 speakers throughout the tiny cabin. The exhaust note all those speakers are shouting down is also greatly improved, thanks to new plumbing with no crossover, revised resonators, and better control of the combustion itself courtesy of VVT and savvier engine control computers. Unabashed sybarites can upgrade to the GTS model, which gets standard Napa leather upholstery, 40 pounds of sound deadening, and a comfier ride afforded by new Bilstein Damptronic two-way adjustable shocks. And if Napa leather proves too “domestic” for them, there’s an Italian Laguna leather package that swathes the entire cockpit in Gucci-grade sepia-toned hides.

Purists will want to order the base car (also a coupe, but with manual seats and “protein vinyl” trim) and tick the SRT Track Package box (it’s also available on GTS). This brings superlight black wheels shod in Pirelli P Zero Corsa soft-compound, non-run-flat tires (275/35ZR18 front, 355/30ZR19 rear) and StopTech composite rotors (slotted, vented, 14-inch steel discs on aluminum hubs). Carbon ceramic rotors are not offered for two good reasons: They’re super expensive to replace if an owner nicks one while changing tires at a track day, and they don’t absorb as much heat as steel rotors do, so that heat ends up in the pads and calipers. Sizing them large enough to prevent boiling the fluid offsets the rotors’ weight savings and would force 19-inch front wheels.

To help ensure that this charm-schooled Viper can defend track records set by its predecessor at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and the Nurburgring Nordschleife (each of which is immortalized by track maps on interior cubby mats), the car is 100 or 140 pounds lighter (GTS or base), and stronger by 40 hp and 40 lb-ft, for a total of 640 hp and 600 lb-ft. (Fun fact: you can call it an even 800 hp created in the cylinders, because powertrain chief Dick Winkles claims that the first 160 hp are spent overcoming engine friction.) According to vehicle development chief and dynamics guru Erich Heuschele, the SRT Viper’s handling is improved enough that, along with the improved weight-to-power ratio, it should be a half-second/mile quicker around most challenging circuits. But enough of the preamble — let’s saddle these snakes and see how they slither.

I start out with some refresher laps in a 2010 Viper, which feels slightly crude and dangerous compared to the Corvette ZR1 I’ve driven to the track. Its cockpit is confining, the seat feels like an upholstered half-whiskey barrel, the shifter seems industrial-sourced, and the helm gives a sense of swinging the nose into turns. Sure, it’s crazy fast and big hairy fun to drive — but in a brute force, blunt-instrument way.

Next I strap into the all-new base Viper with the SRT Track Package and suddenly it’s the ZR1 that feels like the antique, lacking Viper’s high-def reverse camera, modern crisp screen graphics, connectivity, etc. Relative to the 2010 Viper, the seat is vastly more comfortable and supportive, though I find I now have to motor the pedals rearward to meet a seat position that puts me far enough away from the (non-telescoping) steering wheel. From the first touch of the start/stop button (keyless go is now standard), the engine barks to life more eagerly and settles into a less guttural but still uniquely ten-cylinder lope.

Charging off into the first series of turns, the car rotates much more eagerly. Steering feel is about on par with that of the outgoing car, and it’s almost hard to believe the ratio is the same (16.7:1) because the yaw response is so much quicker. Credit the 50-percent stiffer chassis (see that under-hood X-brace?), the wider front track (62.4 inches versus 61.7), stickier Corsa tires, and myriad suspension geometry tweaks. Chief among these is a set of new rear toe-control links that permit more compliant understeer — a good thing that helps put power down in corners less, um, dramatically.

The new billet shift mechanism’s greater precision is appreciated, though over the course of several laps, I frequently have trouble finding the desired slot in the narrow gate. More practice (and some wear) might eliminate that issue. The shorter axle ratio (3.55:1 versus 3.07:1) and better spacing between the six transmission ratios mean that normal driving will have folks rowing this box more than before. The briefest blip of a heel on the throttle gets the revs matched perfectly, thanks to the new 21-pound aluminum flywheel (a Chrysler first). Roaring off toward the next turn, the car flaunts a fatter, more linear torque curve that owes much to a new composite intake manifold with smoother, longer runners and more uniform air distribution. This box also keeps the charge air (sucked directly in through the center hood scoop) cooler too, all of which combines to let every cylinder burn more fuel more effectively.

I keep the new stability control switched on for the first session (the car must be stopped to switch it off), and only detect its intervention once, exiting turn six in second with a provocative jab of throttle that dials up at least 20 degrees of slip angle before the system straightens things out. My next stint is in the GTS Launch Edition (150 cars to be sold in blue over white stripes — the only cars that will be built in that combo — with StopTech discs, but base P Zeros and the heavier, polished wheels). This one’s four-mode stability system features full-on, Sport, Track, and full-off modes. It is designed to let owners step down through the levels as they build confidence during a given track day. Sport allows a bit more longitudinal and lateral slip before intervening, and track uses the same intervention thresholds but controls them via engine power only — no brake intervention. I could fib about discovering an intervention threshold 14 percent farther out in sport, and achieving further 4 degrees of slip angle in track, but such declarations will have to wait for our 2013 Best Drivers Car showdown. That event’s lapping session at Laguna Seca will provide the ultimate fade-test for these steel brakes (which proved indefatigable at GingerMan), and its road-looping day will give us a better sense of how these two-way adjustable Bilstein Damptronic shocks tame road imperfections. (Heuschele prefers their ability to provide two different damping curves to GM’s magnerheological shocks, which simply slide an identical damping curve up or down the harshness scale.)

With the memory of 2012’s Best Drivers’ Car competition still tingling in my fingertips, the temptation to prognosticate on Viper’s prospects for 2013 is irresistible. It’s still a night-and-day different car than this year’s BDC-winning Porsche 911, but it weighs only 50 pounds more and boasts over half-again as much power and nearly double the 911’s torque. Better yet, it puts that power down with remarkable efficiency. The Viper’s broader stance and savvier suspension inspire greater confidence than the big Americans (Camaro ZL1 and Shelby GT500) did this year, and nobody will complain that the computers did all the work during the hottest lap, as was the case with the McLaren. It’s a very heavy favorite to lay down the fastest Laguna lap (applying Heuschele’s half-second/mile prediction, that’s 1:34.0 on our clocks — a BDC record), and my sense is that such a lap will put a much broader smile on the driver’s face than the the last Viper ACR and Corvette Z06/Z07 did. And that just might bring BDC bragging rights home to Detroit.